August 11 - 1965 - The Watts Riots Begin

A routine traffic stop for reckless and drunken driving should not explode into a riot, but that is precisely how the Watts Riots began in South Central Los Angeles. Both because of the nature of discriminatory housing practices and increasingly militarized policing, the Watts neighborhood was a pile of tender waiting for a match to explode it. The Los Angeles Police Department under Chief William Parker was increasingly hostile to African-Americans, and the Watts Riots were the ultimate crest of that tendency.